hope

I've been honored with an invitation to blog regularly at The Master's Artist.

As my friend (and now co-blogger) said, "What is this place coming to?"

Nevertheless, I will pop my head up on The Master's Artist every other Tuesday, beginning today.

A snatch from my inaugural piece (unless you count my guest blog a few weeks ago, but since that was a trial run, I suppose we can still call this one the inaugural post):

In my college music composition study, I worked on a violin unaccompanied sonata for an upcoming master class. For the first movement, I took a five-note motif and stretched it, condensed it, turned it upside-down and inside-out. I layered it in fugue and counterpoint. I syncopated its rhythm with hemiola.

In other words, I made that sucker work.

“Nice ideas in the first movement, but the second movement is where you really shine.” He pointed his long, bony finger at me. (Okay, so it wasn’t really bony, although it was long, but bony fingers make better stories.) “In this lyricism, I begin to see you.”

Harsh words to take as a young composer. It got worse.

Read the rest here.

Update: Sorry the links were not previously working. They're working now.

Two things occurred to bring together this photo:

1. I gave my husband a Nikon D40 for Christmas (actually, several family members went in with me to give it to him). I (mostly) gave him the camera because he always finds creative shots and loves playing with the settings of our simple point-and-shoot for the best picture. If he produces unusual pictures now with limited settings, I can't wait for the photos he'll find with all the bells and whistles. But I also gave him this because I wanted to play with it. Yes, I know. I've opened the door to getting an HDTV for my next birthday gift.

2. Michelle started a new photo challenge called Popinjay. I won't spell out the details (you can see them here), but this week's word is hope.

Now, on to the picture itself.  

I chose a mailbox. At summer camp, my muscles jittered at mail call. And who doesn't look through the stack of bills and junk mail with some semblance of hope of a real letter, or at least a Netflix DVD? Also, I wanted to get the mailbox from a child's perspective. 

You'll notice that the mailbox is dirty, old, simple, and leaning to one side. I knew this was the perfect mailbox when I saw it. It's not about the mailbox itself. The mailbox is the conduit for the real hope--brown paper packages tied up with string.

It's a simple shot, but I took dozens of photos of this mailbox (because I wanted to play around with all these magical settings--in some cases my camera yelled at me, like when I tried to make it have a large aperture with bright sunlight; Too much light! it said, or something to that effect). I wonder what the neighbors thought of me as I snapped away. Stalker?

And, yes, I know you're not supposed to take pictures into the sunlight, but I liked the bit of haze the sunlight gave the mailbox.

"Do we have a theology of failure? Not of suffering, but of failure . . . I ask because this is a period of failure for me. I have the Midas touch turned awry--everything I touch turns to dust."

I'm up today at Tapestry exploring failure and what it has to do with my Christian life.

Read the rest.

Advent holds ideas of waiting, anticipation, peace, hope, incarnation, justice. I think of Mary, her hands rubbing her belly. I think of the shepherds, searching Bethlehem. I think of the wise men, following a star. All waiting.

This is the third segment of my interview with Dr. Glenn Kreider, professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, about art and Christianity. In this part, we talk about facing the evilness in this world and bringing in the hope of the day when God will set everything right.

And we talk for a moment about Sweeney Todd, my favorite musical!

The podcast runs under 6 minutes.

It can hit anywhere--on a sunny, blue day with birds chirping, flowers blooming, friends laughing, or a day with deep thunder and bright lightening. Without warning, I'm overcome by the evilness in this world.

It's not so much about anything personal, nothing done to me.

Then again, it's always personal, this evilness in the world.

I've taken to making my sundaes like McDonald's. Do they still do that? Leave a thick layer of fudge at the bottom of the ice cream cup as a reward?

I spoon a tablespoon, maybe two, of Braum's hot fudge into the bottom of my bowl, heat it up, and add Breyer's natural vanilla bean ice cream.